Elephants are even smarter than we thought

It’s time to address the elephant in the room – and tell them to put the hose away when they’re done using it.

According to a new study published in Current Biology, elephants possess remarkable skill at turning a hose into a flexible shower head, in the latest example of tool usage in the animal kingdom.

The study details how an Asian elephant named Mary at the Berlin Zoo uses a water hose to shower herself in a surprisingly sophisticated way:

• Mary systematically covers her entire body with water by coordinating the hose with her limbs.
• She typically grabs the hose behind its tip to use it as a stiff shower head – but to reach her back, she switches to a lasso strategy, grasping the hose farther up and swinging it over her body.
• When researchers presented Mary with a larger and heavier hose, she ditched the bulkier, less useful hose and used her trunk to wash instead, in an exhibition of goal-directed tool use.

Impractical Joker?

During the experiment, another elephant, Anchali, seemed to have mastered the art of sabotaging Mary’s water flow. First, Anchali pulled the hose and kinked it – then she got even craftier, using her trunk to press down and stop the water completely.

Researchers are divided on Anchali’s motivation. Some view her behavior as the elephant version of a YouTube prankster, while others see it as seeking attention from humans who are focused on the other elephant – or even deliberate sabotage.

⚒️ Zoom out: The study marks the latest example of tool use within the animal kingdom. A non-exhaustive list: octopuses use coconut shells as portable armor, sea otters keep a favorite rock in their pouch to break open hard-shelled prey, and crows and great apes can even create new tools for themselves by combining two or more otherwise non-functional elements.